


The Years Forgotten

by LadyNighteyes



Category: Radiant Historia
Genre: Abusive Parents, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Pre-Canon, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-04 20:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNighteyes/pseuds/LadyNighteyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eruca's brother, and how she lost him.</p><p>Warning for endgame spoilers, canon deaths (and accompanying violence), and Victor not exactly being father of the year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I'm aware that the ages given here don't quite match up with the official ones. But, since they're never mentioned in-game, I decided to take some liberties and add a few years to a couple of characters' ages to make the timeline work a bit better.

When the king and his brother fought, the entire castle always knew it. The prince and princess just happened to have a particularly good view this time.

It was a pleasantly cool night in early autumn, and they had snuck out to watch the stars. It was an old pattern by now: Ernst would wait until the guards thought he was asleep, then slip out onto the balcony and pull himself up onto a low-hanging part of the roof. It was a short trip from there to his sister's balcony, where she'd be waiting for him to arrive and help her climb the thick ivy up onto the roof (she had just passed her eighth birthday, and wasn't quite tall enough to reach it on her own yet). Together, they'd wander the castle's rooftops, reveling in the thrill of danger and disobedience.

This evening, they were in one of their favorite spots, above a mostly-uninhabited guest wing of the palace. A cul-de-sac of buildings left half of the roof invisible to anyone below roof level, and on the other side was one of the castle's several elaborate gardens. As it was neither the largest nor the most elegant, it wasn't a particularly popular spot even in the daytime, but seen from above, the deserted rows of moonlit rosebushes had a strange beauty about them. The two children would lie on the hidden side of the rooftop, talking quietly and looking up at the sky. Though the lights from the city below made it difficult to see more than the brightest constellations, it was the best stargazing spot they knew.

Eruca was the first to notice the sound of raised voices, too far away for the words to be audible, but the tone clear. She nudged her brother, who looked over at her questioningly. Before she could say anything, however, there was a loud thunderclap from the direction of the garden behind their hiding place. Eruca, already on edge, jumped, and Ernst reached out an arm to steady her. They sat together and listened as the shouting continued, underscored by the crackle of electricity.

"Well," said Ernst quietly, "shall we take a look?" Eruca nodded, hesitant. From the sound of it, their father was in rare form tonight, but if Ernst wasn't worried, she wouldn't let herself be either.

The prince climbed the gentle slope toward the crest of the roof with the easy grace of long practice (at fourteen, he was already a master of sneaking around the castle unseen), then reached down to help her. She took his hand and clambered after him, more clumsy but still silent. Then both of them carefully peeked over the edge of the roof to look down into the garden below.

As expected, King Victor was standing there, and even at this distance it was clear his face was near-purple with rage. He was a grim-looking man, but visibly spoiled by indolence, the harsh lines of his face softened by too much food and too much wine. Though he had once been known for his good looks, even his beautifully-tailored clothing couldn't quite disguise that he was now out-of-shape and running to fat. Occasional arcs of electricity flashed through the air around him, and a slightly charred statue of an angel nearby had clearly taken the brunt of at least one lightning bolt.

Facing him was his brother, the duke. The title was more of a formality than anything, but King Victor had always been big on formalities. He was somewhat taller, thinner, and fitter than the king, with a hooked nose and eyes that had been hazel before he... changed. Now they were a cool gray, matching his brother's. Despite the crackling lightning, his posture was one of anger, but not fear; Eruca wished that she could handle the king's magical temper tantrums so well.

Now that they were closer, it was easier to pick out a few words of what the two men were saying.

_"-why should I-"_ That was the duke, slashing his hand through the air to punctuate his statement.

The king rocked back as if he'd been slapped, his expression one of utter shock. All she could catch of his response was, _"-you'd let-"_

The duke cut him off as he was still speaking. _"-didn't volunteer-"_

_"-sacrifices must-"_

She could almost _feel_ the sneer in the duke's reply, though all she heard was, _"-you sit here and-"_ Whatever he had said, it must have hit home. Victor snarled and threw another bolt of lightning at his brother, who calmly stepped out of the way. It hit a birdbath instead, sending shards of pottery flying. Eruca couldn't make out what the duke said next, but she could hear the sarcasm in it even without the words. The king simply snarled in response, turned on his heel, and stomped off toward the front gates of the castle.

His brother watched him go, then turned and walked off in the opposite direction. Both children stared after him as he left, Ernst with obvious curiosity and Eruca with an odd feeling of dread. "I wonder what that was about?" said the prince, so low she could barely hear him.

That was the last time Eruca saw her uncle for the next eight years.


	2. Rings and Secret Passages

The prince and his magic instructor had a tacit agreement: he would arrange not to be in the room when she arrived, and she wouldn't have to teach him. They were both aware that Ernst had little interest in honing his magical talents, and that if it wasn't for a royal decree ordering her to the castle, Magister Lia would be at home, continuing her research. But the king was quite insistent that his children would learn magic from the best in the country, so there could be no argument. But if the prince skipped classes, that wasn't _her_ fault, now, was it?

The king had resorted to having guards escort his son to the classroom, but even that didn't always work; if Ernst managed to get out of their sight for even a minute, he'd be gone. They'd caught him a handful of times, but usually, he'd vanish entirely for the rest of the afternoon, only to saunter in to dinner as though nothing had happened.

Now that his uncle was gone, and with him their frequent trips outside the castle, this seemed to be happening much more often.

This time, he had slipped away when both guards had walked ahead of him as they passed through a portrait gallery. The hall was lined with occasional alcoves with benches; one of them, across from a painting of his great-great-grandfather, had a panel in the wall that slid back to reveal an old dumbwaiter shaft. He'd ducked in, shut the panel, then climbed the metal rungs in the wall to a spot two floors below, where another hatch had been badly covered over. That put him in a disused access corridor, where a dusty broom closet held a set of plain clothes he'd stashed there and a window faced out onto the waterway connecting the castle sewers to the ones under the city proper. A change of clothes and a short drop to the walkway, and he was out.

He started to walk towards the city, but stopped. He looked up, thoughtfully, towards the corner of the castle housing the solar where Eruca would be studying her history at this time of day. Then, moving quickly so he wouldn't have time to reconsider, he turned around and headed back into the castle.

\----

Eruca was used to her brother dropping in unexpectedly, so she wasn't particularly surprised when he walked in the balcony door. She was rather more surprised to see him dressed in a way that made him look more like a member of the palace staff than royalty. _Father will have a fit if he sees._

He said with no preamble, "I'm going into the city. You want to come along?"

She blinked up at him, shocked. "Father gave you permission?"

"Of course not. You coming?"

She looked over guiltily at the pile of books she was supposed to be studying, then stopped herself. They'd still be there tomorrow. "Yes, I will."

"Good." He smiled that crooked little half-smile that her nurse said would make girls swoon when he was older. "Do you have any clothes you can wear, or should I borrow a spare uniform from one of the servants?"

"I think I've got something," she said uncertainly.

"All right, then let's go," he said, and offered her his hand.

The trip across the rooftops was much more frightening by day than it had been by night. It was much harder to ignore the precipitous drop when she could see the ground than when it was just a mass of shadows. Ernst seemed completely calm, though, so she tried to follow his example. And, indeed, they made it without incident, though the bright sunlight made her feel like they'd be spotted any moment.

"I need to go get something. You change, and I'll be right back," he said. He was off before she could do any more than nod. She slipped into her room and found the oldest, plainest clothes she owned, a faded blue dress made for her grandmother as a girl by a duchess with an interest in tailoring, which no one had quite had the heart to throw away. By the time she came back out, her brother was, true to his word, waiting for her.

He looked her over. "I guess that'll work, but the fabric's still pretty rich. We'll say you're a merchant's daughter."

"What about you?"

A hint of a smile. "I'm your bodyguard." He raised his hand, and she saw with a shock that he was carrying a sheathed sword. And, from the plain, serviceable look of the hilt, it wasn't one of the ceremonial swords that were the only kind Victor permitted in court- it was the real thing.

"Did you get that from Uncle?" It was no secret that the duke had been far more supportive of the prince's interest in learning to fight than Victor had.

"Yes."

"Does Father know?"

"No."

There wasn't much else to say to that, she supposed. "Where are we going?"

"Just follow me," he said with another half-smile.

He led her along a convoluted route of secret passageways and abandoned attics that ultimately led them to a hidden door at the bottom of a dry well. He ushered her through into a dark, stone-walled passageway, then followed, moving the door into place behind them. With it shut, the tunnel was pitch-black, and she whispered a few words to conjure up a light.

"I usually just follow the walls, but I suppose that works," said her brother, sounding amused.

"You didn't make a light? Why?"

"I'd probably burn something down if I tried. C'mon, let's go."

As Eruca had expected, the darkened tunnel eventually connected up to the sewers. She'd heard that they were originally made to provide a way for the royal family to get out of the castle in an emergency, and she was starting to believe it. The only sounds were those of the water and their own faintly echoing footsteps, and in corners where the air wasn't moving, the smell was choking. The place had an eerie ambient glow of magelight, and she let her own light die now that they could see without it. The tunnels seemed to go on forever, and she was quite surprised when, after they'd been walking for what felt like hours but was probably only fifteen minutes, Ernst pointed to a ladder and said, "There it is."

She scrambled up as quickly as she could, anxious to be out of the underground passage. Though the alley above was a dark dead end, full of trash and the scent of rotting wood, being out in the open air felt wonderful. Her brother followed more slowly, glancing around as he climbed out of the tunnel. Once he was satisfied that no one had seen them, he shoved one of the splintered wooden boxes lying nearby over the entrance, hiding it from view.

He knelt down to look her in the eyes, the sword at his belt scraping in the dirt as he did so. It seemed strange to her how natural he looked carrying it, even at his age. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up, meeting his eyes.

"This is very important, so I need you to remember it," he said, voice serious. "If anyone asks, do _not_ give your real name, or mine. You're Ana, the daughter of a merchant named Selin, and I'm Martin, your cousin. Your dad asked me to show you around town while he was here on business. Got that?" She nodded mechanically, transfixed by the intensity of his green eyes. "Good," he said. He patted her shoulder and stood up, and now the smile was back, as though the previous moment had never happened. He flourished a bow, and she giggled. "Well, then, fair lady, where would you like to go first?"

She didn't have to think long. "The market!"

"Good choice. It's just around the corner."

They picked their way out of the alley and found themselves in a narrow street fronted by rickety-looking houses and a rather shady-looking bar. There were a few other people on the street, but they seemed intent on their own business and ignored the two newcomers. Eruca glanced around curiously, noting the peeling paint, the garbage in corners, the boarded-up windows. Her father had definite opinions about how royalty should interact with the people, so when she had gone into the city before, she had never been allowed off the main thoroughfares, and usually wasn't even permitted to leave the carriage.

They rounded a corner, and it was like stepping into another world. The market square was a riot of noise and color, vendors shouting to be heard over the general hubbub. Eruca held onto her brother's hand tightly, both excited and rather intimidated by the bustling crowd. He led her past farmers, spice merchants, sellers of cloth, of fish, of livestock and flowers, and she craned to see everything. They stopped, once, at a stall between a dairy farmer's display and a butcher's, where he bought her some sort of rock candy from a huge collection of sweets. She hugged him in thanks, but wondered as they continued on where he had gotten the money.

When she saw a guard dressed in the palace livery standing on the other side of the market, she almost panicked, but her brother just squeezed her hand reassuringly and kept walking. She couldn't help but hold her breath as they walked past, but the guard barely spared them a glance. Once they were safely out of earshot, she tugged on her brother's sleeve and asked him, "Why was a palace guard there?"

"She's not palace guard. See that patch on her sleeve?" He pointed, and Eruca saw that instead of the crown she had seen so many times on uniforms around the palace, this woman's tunic had a shield insignia instead. "That means she's part of the special police force. Probably here to watch for pickpockets."

"Oh. What's a special police force?"

Her brother's expression seemed to grow sadder and more distant, and she wondered if that had been the wrong question to ask. "They're... a new unit of the police entirely under royal command. They have no accountability to the Assembly at all and they're allowed to do whatever they think they need to to keep the peace. The king's been funneling off more and more of the police funding to them, and I've heard people guessing he's trying to undercut the Assembly entirely."

She opened her mouth to say, _I know he is, he said so last week,_ but the prince put a finger to his lips and gave her a warning look. _Not now._

They continued on. Though they were outside the official market, the area was still full of craftsmen and artists hawking their wares from blankets spread out on the cobblestones. They took their time here, Eruca stopping to look at almost everything, while her brother stood back, smiling. While the palace was full of beautiful things, they tended to be all of a type, with little variety in style, so many of the things on display here were new to her.

She found herself especially captivated when they stumbled across a dark-haired artisan from Cygnus, the rug in front of him spread with jewelry like nothing she'd ever seen. Her brother saw her looking in awe and asked, "Find something you want?"

She nodded and pointed to a ring. Rather than a solid ring of metal, it seemed to be constructed of a ribbon of silver that had been curled around and twisted so the ends almost, but not quite, met, and nestled on one side was a single sparkling stone. "Do... do we have enough for that?"

"I don't know." He looked over at the man. "How much?"

"Two thousand."

"Seventeen hundred."

"Eighteen-fifty."

"Done." He counted out the money and handed it over.

The man handed Eruca the ring, smiling. "Glad you like it, little lady."

"Th-thank you," she said, embarrassed for no good reason she could think of.

"You keep that out of sight until we get back, okay?" said her brother as they walked off.

That evening at dinner, her grandmother would ask where the princess's new ring had come from. Eruca told her she'd found it fallen into the bottom of an old jewelry box. She didn't think anyone else saw Ernst's knowing smile when he heard.


	3. Disobedience and Lies

It was only the first of many trips like it. Despite numerous, increasingly desperate attempts by the king, keeping Ernst in when he wanted out proved to be an exercise in futility. Careful timing of their forays into the city meant that Eruca's disappearances often went unnoticed, as she was assumed to be reading quietly in a tower. She'd been found out a handful of times, but the king had believed (admittedly accurately), that she only came along because Ernst asked her to. She wasn't sure if it was that or her age that stopped her father from doling out the same punishment to her that her brother received, but either way, she rarely left private conversations with her father with electrical burns. Ernst nearly always did.

After the first time she'd seen her father punish him, she'd gone to her brother the next day and begged him to stop, to cooperate, not to put himself through any more pain. He'd just smiled sadly and told her that he'd rather live with the shocks than stay locked up in the palace, and he just hoped that at some point their father would realize that hurting him wasn't going to work.

A part of her, quietly, wondered if the king would have dared to go so far if their uncle was still there.

Eventually, she had realized that he was going to keep sneaking out no matter what she did or said. So, she reasoned (or, maybe, rationalized), the best thing she could do to help him would be to come along when he asked.

And, she quickly realized, it was helpful to her as well. Their excursions proved to be far more educational than the work she was skipping, as they explored every corner of the city. "Martin," it turned out, had a surprisingly large social circle for someone who only existed a few days a week, and she found herself meeting people she'd never expected even to interact with, from the grizzled, jovial mercenary Ernst called "my _real_ fencing instructor" to the clever bartender who had figured out his real identity with alarming speed. While her father had taught her to use guns, it was only now that she learned how to conceal them, and she found herself picking up more and more of the routes out of the palace, even as the king tried to shut them off.

The more she saw of the state of the city, the more she understood her brother's almost self-destructively stubborn insistence on opposing their father and his rules. Seeing the special police force harassing civilians had quickly ceased to be a surprise; most of them seemed to be more concerned with ferreting out "treasonous talk" than with actually preventing crime of any sort. As soon as you got away from the main roads and rich neighborhoods, the buildings and roads degenerated at an incredible rate, like a house whose owner only cleaned the rooms dinner guests would see. In some areas where the property tax had gone through the roof to support the king's expensive tastes, there were houses standing empty while the former residents lived on the street, unable to pay the now-exorbitant rent.

Shortly before Eruca's tenth birthday, one of their trips found the two of them in a clearing in an overgrown park on the southern side of town. The princess was perched on a rock, while her brother sprawled in the grass next to her, looking up at the sky. The sounds of the city were slightly muted by the out-of-control honeysuckle bushes around them, and a few songbirds chattered angrily from the trees. They could almost imagine they were far away from home.

"Ernst," said Eruca suddenly, "why did Uncle go away?"

He sat up and looked over at her, and she could tell he was weighing his answers. Trying to decide how much to tell her.

"He... was afraid, I think," he said eventually. "He thought that if he stayed, he'd have to do something he didn't want to do."

"What?"

"Die."

They were both silent for a while. Eventually, Eruca spoke. "Why?"

"To stop the world from ending."

"So if he left, does that mean the world will end?"

He shook his head. "No, not yet. It's... slow."

Another silence, longer this time. Again, it was Eruca who broke it. "So, does that mean... I'll have to die too?"

"Why would you say that?" His tone was a little too calm, a little too neutral.

"If Father's king and Uncle's supposed to die, and you're going to be king, that means..."

He didn't say anything.

"I'm right, aren't I?"

More silence. Then, so suddenly she could _see_ the transition, the outer walls were back up and he was smiling. "Of course you're not going to die. We'll find another way. Something that isn't just temporary, so nobody has to be sacrificed for it ever again. You can be my top adviser in charge of stopping me from rushing into things like an idiot. Got it?"

"...Got it," she said, forcing a smile.

Maybe if they said it enough times, they could pretend it was true.


	4. Exile and Carriage Rides

Ernst had always made a point of not running off if he was supposed to meet with anyone from outside his father's circle. Ambassadors and other visiting dignitaries usually left wondering where his reputation for rebelliousness came from, and even nobles from far-flung areas of the kingdom would always find him when and where he was supposed to be, polite and charming, if reserved. He knew the king would notice the pattern eventually, but he would rather that happen than have his feud with his father intrude on international politics.

Victor was temperamental and unpredictable, and Ernst had had no idea what he should expect once the king figured it out. But, if he'd been asked to make a guess, he would never have settled on what actually happened.

When he was summoned to his father's room one evening, the king was _smiling_.

He walked up, warily, to stand in front of the elegant mahogany desk where his father was sitting. There was a look in the king's gray eyes that he couldn't quite place.

"Have a seat," said Victor, gesturing to a chair. Ernst remained standing. "Have. A _seat_ ," he repeated, his tone instantly gone from magnanimous to snarling. This time, Ernst complied.

"Good. See how much better things go when we cooperate?" The prince said nothing, instead meeting his father's insincerely smiling eyes with his own cold look. The king looked away first. "Anyway, I know we've had our differences-"

That was an understatement.

"-but I think I may have found a solution that will make both of us happy."

 _I find that unlikely_ , he thought, but he kept his expression neutral.

"I'm appointing you to the diplomatic corps."

"You'd let _me_ speak for you?" It came out a bit more disbelieving than he'd intended.

The king's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a grimace. "No. You'd be there mostly as... a symbol, to show the Crown is especially interested." The king leaned forward, and his voice grew cold. "You get out of the castle like you always seem to want to be. I don't have to worry about you constantly making a laughingstock of the guards. You don't have to interact with anyone in the palace, and in return you will do exactly what I tell you to. I've already told them you're coming, and there will be _no_ argument. Understood?" The prince hesitated. " _Understood?_ " There were sparks visible in the air around the king, and he spoke through gritted teeth. Reluctantly, Ernst nodded.

"Then go. You're leaving tomorrow."

The king picked up a letter off one of the stacks on his desk and began reading it, a clear dismissal. Ernst, however, didn't move. "What about Eruca?"

He didn't even look up from the letter as he replied. "What about her?"

"...I see." The prince stood up and bowed. "Goodbye, Father." He left the room through the same door he came in by, footsteps loud on the tile floor. Victor didn't even notice him leave.

\--

True to the king's words, the next day, the prince found himself herded in to join a group of ambassadors, staff, and a hastily-expanded honor guard as they left the city. The day was cold, wet, and generally unpleasant, so rather than riding (as he usually preferred to do), he accepted a spot in a carriage. When the procession moved off, he found himself sharing a coach with a terrified-looking girl of maybe twelve years, a minor nobleman who was sweating bullets (her father, he presumed), and a well-dressed elderly woman who was fast asleep and snoring softly.

They were crossing the drawbridge out of the city when he heard the girl whisper to her father, "How long are we gonna be traveling, Dad?"

Ernst looked up from the book he was reading (a rather dry treatise on economics which was boring him to tears) and said, "A week, total. Today, probably around four hours if the weather stays like this."

Both the man and the girl jumped. "I-I'm so sorry, Your Highness, I'm sure my daughter didn't mean to interrupt-"

He waved a hand, cutting the man off. "No, no, it's fine." He smiled slightly. "I wouldn't have bullied them into letting me share my carriage if conversation bothered me." He looked back over at the girl. "We're on our way to a town in Alistellian territory, so we'll be passing through Gran Plain, down and across the cliffs, then back up into the mountains. Today we're stopping at a town near the edge of the plain."

The girl stared at him, still looking frozen with terror, then looked away, blushing furiously. The silence stretched on, and Ernst was about to go back to his book when the man suddenly said, "Wait. Do you mean you... had to ask to take us on, Your Highness?"

He shrugged. "I'd rather share a coach than watch people out in the rain who don't have to be."

"Thank you, Your Highness."

He looked away. "It's nothing. Really."

The silence was starting to get extremely uncomfortable when the carriage hit a bump in the road and the woman in the corner woke up with a snort. She yawned, then looked around, eyes glittering. "What'd I miss?" Her eyes settled on Ernst, and she grinned, showing a few false teeth. "Oh, hello, Your Highness. You the one who rescued my son-in-law here from catching pneumonia?" It was clear she didn't really expect an answer, so he stayed quiet as she looked him over thoughtfully. "You've got your mother's eyes. It looks good on you."

"Well, that's a relief. I don't know what I'd do if it didn't," he said dryly.

She cackled with laughter. "Don't you go taking it for granted, Your Highness. You're, what, fifteen now?"

"Sixteen, actually."

"You look just like your father did at that age." Another appraising look. "Quiet, though. That's more like your uncle. Wouldn't have expected that from someone who throws the whole castle into an uproar twice a week."

"Grandmother!" said the girl, sounding horrified. Ernst looked over at her, amused.

"It's not exactly a secret," he said.

She shrank back in her seat, apparently hoping she could melt into the cushion through sheer embarrassment. "W-well, no, but..." He waited, but she didn't seem inclined to finish the sentence.

The old woman laughed again. "Don't worry, Your Highness. My granddaughter is just nervous around good-looking young men." She winked at him, and the girl turned even redder.

He decided to ignore that. Best find another topic to distract her. "You said you knew my father when he was younger?"

"Oh, yes. I was at court quite often at the time."

"What were he and my uncle like then?"

She frowned as she tried to remember. "The king- or, well, I suppose he was the prince then- was... demanding. He knew how things should be, and if they didn't match, then woe unto you. Spent a lot of time locked up in his lab doing some sort of magical experiments, but he made up for it by making sure nobody forgot he was there the rest of the time. And your grandmother just _loved_ to dote on him." That didn't particularly surprise him- one of the only times in his life he could remember his father crying had been when she had died a few months before.

"The duke was the opposite way. He was always standing by and watching everything that was going on. Didn't say much, but he made it count when he did." She chuckled. "Your father always tried to avoid him in public, because he'd just sit there quiet for twenty minutes, then when Victor had forgotten he was there, suddenly say something that completely took the wind out of his sails."

He almost smiled. "I can imagine. Father must have hated it."

"Oh, he did." She paused. "Whatever happened to the duke, anyway? I haven't heard anything about him for... my goodness, it must be over a year now."

He winced and looked away. "I... can't say."

"Oh dear. One of _those_ things."

"Yes."

She nodded sympathetically. "Every family's got something like that. It must be worse when they're state secrets to boot." He didn't say anything, but his silence said enough on its own.

There was a brief pause. Then, suddenly, the woman punched her son-in-law in the arm. "Peter, you haven't said a word this whole time. Are you just going to sit there frozen the whole way?"

"Er- um, I-" He looked around desperately.

The prince decided to have mercy on him. "In his defense, ma'am, he works outside the country. I'm not sure it's entirely reasonable to expect him to be able to contribute much to a discussion of Court thirty years ago." The man gave him an extremely grateful look.

The woman snorted with laughter. "You have a point. I guess I'll let him off the hook this time. _If_ ," and this last word was accompanied by an evil grin, "he tells the rest of us about all the places he's worked at the embassy."

"But I'm-"

"-stuck in a carriage with three other people who have nothing better to do than listen." She hooked a thumb at where the prince was sitting, across from them. "That book His Highness is holding is Lord Cory's _Trade and Mercantilism in the Gran Region_ , and it's excruciating. I wouldn't be surprised if he's looking for any excuse to avoid reading it. Am I right?"

He smiled slightly. "Guilty as charged."

"Well then, there you go. And unless I nodded off a lot longer than I think I did, we've got a lot more time to fill. So start talking."

They passed the rest of the trip in relatively amicable conversation. Though, for some reason, the young girl seemed to blush every time the prince looked at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, okay, I admit it, I just wanted to write about him inadvertently making people really uncomfortable and not knowing how to deal with it. So sue me.


	5. Resolve and Advice

Perhaps Ernst's favorite thing about being out from under his father's thumb was no longer having to hide his morning fencing practice. On the other hand, he thought sourly, he could really do without the audience.

The members of the honor guard following him had been annoying, but he couldn't particularly blame them. He'd made the best of it by asking one of them to spar with him, and while he knew they were all going easy on him, it was better than nothing. But then, somehow, rumors spread- on the third day out from the city, a handful of people trailed in after the guards and stood silently by on the edges of the clearing, staring. He recognized the girl from the first day's carriage ride, along with a few runners around his age. The next day, the group had been a little larger, and today, the day they were to arrive at their destination, he found himself in the middle of an almost-solid circle of watchers. It was enough to make him rather uncomfortable.

Ernst sidestepped a suspiciously-slow slash by the guardsman and feinted to the right. The man brought his shield up to block ( _that_ , he had noticed, they never seemed to be nearly as clumsy about), but stumbled back as the prince's strike changed direction. He managed to get his sword up in time to avoid being hit, but he was off-balance now, and Ernst didn't give him time to change that. Within a few seconds, the guard was on the ground, his sword lying a few feet away. The prince sheathed his own weapon, and would have offered a hand to help the man up, if several days of awkward interactions hadn't already taught him that it would be rejected.

He wanted to kill whoever it was who decided that was a good time to start clapping.

He groaned and covered his face with his hand as the applause spread. He wondered how many of them realized how little it was deserved. This man had been working even harder than most to lose, and while he understood the motivation, it was incredibly galling. He found himself strangely homesick for the back-alley gyms and fighting rings of the city, where he'd had to worry more about people _trying_ to hit him than the opposite. He made a mental note to apologize to the guard later, then turned and began to walk back towards the camp, onlookers scrambling out of his way.

It wasn't a long walk- his father's men were watching him like hawks, and it would have been more trouble than it was worth to try to go farther out (or so he'd thought; after today, he was starting to reconsider). Some of the guards stood to attention as he walked past; others, mostly those who he had actually spoken to, just saluted and continued what they were doing. He nodded at a few of them as he passed.

The tent they'd given him was large, and far too opulent for his taste. (There _had_ to be a better use for that much silk, he felt) As usual, two of his father's guards stood in front of the door, and they stepped aside as he approached and ducked inside. He was halfway across the room when someone grabbed him from behind.

A hand covered his mouth and he started to struggle, but then a familiar rough male voice whispered, "Quiet. It's me." He froze. "I'm going to take my hand away now. Keep your voice down." He nodded, and the hand withdrew. He turned around.

His uncle's appearance came as something of a shock. In the two and a half years since the prince had seen him last, he seemed to have aged ten, his light brown hair now flecked with silver and his face lined. Comparing him to the king, he would never have guessed that the duke was the younger brother.

"Uncle? What are you doing here?" he said, surprised- but he kept his voice low, as instructed. God alone knew what would happen if the guards heard them.

The duke smiled fondly. "I wanted to see how you were doing. Do I need any more reason than that?"

"Where have you _been_? I haven't heard a word about you since you left!"

He waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, here and there. I've been doing a lot of traveling." His eyes went distant for a moment, then he seemed to shake himself out of his reverie. He put his hands on Ernst's shoulders. "But enough about me. That's not why I came here. How are _you_ doing, my boy?"

The prince blinked. "I... suppose I'm doing all right, all things considered. I'm more worried about Eruca."

"My idiot brother hasn't been too hard on you, has he? I heard you've been frustrating him something fierce." He chuckled. "Good work. He could stand a little frustration once in a while."

The prince couldn't meet his uncle's eyes.

"Oh. So that's how it is, is it?" Ernst nodded silently, rubbing his arms in remembered pain. "Well, then, good job getting away from him. Take my advice and stay away from the castle if you can."

"But I want to _do_ something! I can't change anything he's doing if I'm stuck out here."

"And were you changing anything before?"

"No, but I was _trying_. And maybe in time-"

"No. Victor won't listen to reason, you understand? Look at me." Slowly, the prince looked up, his sea-green eyes meeting the duke's gray ones. "Take this from someone who knows him better than anyone. He won't change his mind. You agree with him, or you're wrong. And you know how he is when people are wrong." The prince grimaced and nodded. "You won't be able to change anything from the palace. But out here where he can't reach you, you have more tools than you know. Think about it." He patted his nephew on the shoulder. "Don't worry, my boy. You'll be able to change history, I know it." Suddenly, he seemed to hear something, and he turned. "I think it's about time I left. Goodbye, my dear Ernst."

"Goodbye, Uncle."

And, as he watched, the duke vanished in a flickering blue haze of magic. He supposed the guards outside thought the movement of the tent flap a moment later was the wind.

\--

He was feeling quite thoughtful when they reached their destination that afternoon. The town that was to be the site of the conference was a small village nestled in the foothills of the Alistellian mountains, and while it apparently got enough visiting merchants to support an inn, the population was now effectively tripled. A small forest of tents surrounded the town, and even from a distance it was easy to see the divides between nations. The Alistellian camp was to the north of the town, all straight lines of white tents arranged with military precision. To the west, the chaotic jumble of groups from Cygnus, divided among themselves according to whichever warlord commanded whose loyalty this week. To the east, a small camp hidden in the trees, where the handful of Celestian delegates were staying. And, to the south, his own people were setting up their camp in a frenzy of activity.

He was slightly exasperated when he discovered that not only was his tent one of the first things they had set up, but they had also apparently prioritized decorating it over all the work that was going on outside. He was even more exasperated that one of his father's cronies was waiting for him.

"Ah, there you are," said the man, a black-haired count from the south of the kingdom. "I'm here to give you your instructions on behalf of His Majesty."

"Instructions?" It wasn't a surprise, but they had taken their sweet time in telling him. He had been beginning to wonder if his father had planned this out at all beyond getting rid of him.

"Yes. I have here your schedule for the next week, and I believe the servants have been informed of it."

"Let me see." He scanned the paper the man handed him. To his annoyance, but not surprise, his father was apparently trying to keep him as far away from the actual negotiations as possible, as often as possible. _(An idea began to flicker to life, but he kept it off his face)_ Instead he said, the disgust plain in his voice, "Gladiators? Really?"

"His Majesty was quite insistent upon that. He says you must learn to overcome your squeamishness, Your Highness."

This was an old fight for them- ironically, given the king's noted distaste for the idea of engaging in hand-to-hand combat himself, he was quite keen on watching slaves and animals murder each other. His son, on the other hand, took a rather dim view of the whole thing. Victor knew it, and considered it yet another failing of Ernst's, and would order him to attend every match in an effort to cure him of what the king considered weakness. The prince had skipped those appointments even more often than he skipped his magic lessons.

He sighed. He'd deal with that when the time came. "Whatever. Did he say anything else?"

"Yes."

"And...?"

"He said to tell you to be careful how you represent us abroad." The count smirked slightly. "His Majesty will be _very_ disappointed in you if you fail to live up to his expectations." Both of them knew what was really meant by that.

"Did he." He kept his tone calm, but wheels were turning in his head.

His uncle was right. All he had to do was figure out how to use what he had.


	6. Conversations and Magic Swords

The king's agents were not looking forward to learning how he would react when their reports reached him. Almost as soon as they had delivered the king's instructions to his son, the prince had somehow gotten in to see the ambassador to Alistel, and the spies among the guards said the two of them had spent most of the afternoon talking politics. When the prince left, he had a standing invitation to most of the actual negotiations.

He'd used it. When a general from Cygnus had laughed at the presence of a sixteen-year-old boy in the inn's hastily-refurbished conference room where the meetings were taking place, the prince had told him that if they could find anyone else who knew King Victor better, he would gladly leave. As it turned out, in addition to having an intimate knowledge of his father's political opinions, Ernst had a great many ideas of his own- some were perhaps a bit naive in their idealism, but others caused a few people to go away thoughtful. He loved to point out the difference between those reparations that would end the current conflict and those that would prevent it from recurring, and he seemed strangely adamant that the expansion of the desert was much more of a threat than it seemed. Most of them laughed this last idea off, but the lone Satyros representative, who rarely said anything, gave him an inscrutable look whenever he brought it up.

And, today, he had simply _walked away_ just before the gladiator matches were about to start. All in all, he was giving his father's agents an enormous collective headache.

He was quite proud of that.

He didn't have any particular destination in mind as he walked along the wooded path; he was more interested in where he was _not_ going than where he _was_. It was a beautiful day, and it was enough to just walk, surrounded by the evergreens that seemed to be everywhere in the mountains. They didn't have the riot of buds and flowers that accompanied this time of year back home, but there was something pleasant about the smell of the pines, new and unfamiliar to him.

So it was entirely on accident that he rounded a corner to find two members of his personal guard standing in the middle of the path, staring suspiciously at a pair of Satyros. He recognized the one on the left- it was the Beastkind representative, a man with green hair, rather short horns, and a sword at his hip. The other, a cloaked woman with orange hair, he didn't think he'd seen before.

"Stand down," he said to the guards, who (rather reluctantly, it seemed to him) put their crossbows away and melted back into the foliage to give them a semblance of privacy. "Good afternoon, Sir... Samra, wasn't it? Didn't expect to run into you out here."

"Good afternoon, Your Highness," said the man, bowing. "We didn't expect to run into anyone either, I'm afraid. You have us at a bit of a disadvantage."

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Oh, no, it's nothing like that. We just had a shared interest in not attending this afternoon's entertainment. Which it would appear you also share, Your Highness." Samra had the mock-serious expression of an inveterate wisecracker.

"Essentially."

"Well then, would you care to not attend it with us? There are a few things we wanted to speak to you about."

"Of course. I'd welcome the company." It was an almost-automatic courtesy response. He was a bit surprised to realize it was mostly true.

"Well then, I suppose introductions are in order." An elaborate bow; the man seemed to like those. "My name, as you have said, is Samra, and I am the leader of the delegation from Celestia. And my lovely companion here is Shaman Isla. Isla, if you hadn't gathered, this young man is His Highness Prince Ernst of Granorg."

"I had, in fact," said Isla. Her voice was low and melodic. "It's a pleasure to meet you." Suddenly, she cocked her head to one side. " _Three_ magical affinities? That's unusual for a human, even one of your bloodline."

"What?"

Samra coughed, sounding embarrassed. "My apologies, Your Highness. As a shaman, she has the ability to-"

"No, I know that. I just don't know what the third one is. Fire, healing, and...?"

She blinked, with the look of someone stating the obvious. "Flux."

"Oh. I hadn't really thought of it like that." The prince wasn't the type to look sheepish, but he got quite close this time. He generally considered his family's unique abilities an entirely separate thing from the other forms of magic he'd inherited, but, now that he thought about it, it wasn't much different from the healing talent he got from his mother. Both skills were nigh-impossible to learn if you didn't have the knack. Despite the fact that his sister was a much more skilled spellcaster than he was outside their respective elements, she had trouble fixing a papercut.

"Well, now that's out of the way, shall we continue?" said Samra cheerfully.

The prince fell into step next to the two Beastkind as they continued walking back the way he had come. They had been walking for a minute or two when Samra said, "What you were saying last does bring us to what I wanted to talk to you about."

"What is it?"

"Why hasn't King Victor done anything to curb the desertification? It's accelerating again, and from what you say, you don't expect it to slow. Why?"

He let out a heavy breath as he stepped over a fallen branch. That was what he'd been afraid they'd ask. "We can't."

"Why not?"

"It needs a willing soul. There isn't one."

"What about your uncle?" That was Isla, eyes glittering from deep in her hood. "I was under the impression he was to be the next."

"He... isn't willing."

"I see." He was glad she didn't inquire further.

A brief pause as they reached a large fallen tree blocking the path. He climbed around the knot of roots to one side, the same way he'd gone going the other direction. The Satyros, on the other hand, tensed and jumped- and both managed to clear it in a single superhuman leap, hooves thudding heavily to the ground on the other side. The three of them resumed walking.

"Before you ask," said the prince, "my sister is _ten_. It takes someone who fully understands what they're doing. She's too young."

Both of them looked guilty. Apparently his guess had been dead on. "So even ignoring what you'd have to do..." Samra trailed off.

"It wouldn't work, yes."

"And your father?"

"Out of the running. He already tore his soul in half bringing Uncle back. If I tried, it wouldn't stick. I asked." Then, dryly, as an afterthought: "Besides, he'd look terrible with my eyes."

Samra snorted with laughter. Isla didn't.

"Your grandfather never participated in the ritual, correct? Would he not be a candidate?" said Samra.

"He died before I was born. You can't give part of your soul to a stranger. There's nothing to connect you."

"But your father knew him."

Isla answered for him. "A soul cannot be divided three ways. It would collapse in on itself."

She turned to Ernst. "What about you?" the shaman said quietly.

"Also out of the running. Heir to the throne." She shot him a look he couldn't interpret- calculating, but oddly sad. He pretended not to see.

"Your line _really_ needs to have more bastard children, Your Highness," said Samra.

The prince smiled at that. "Father has rules. That would be breaking them."

The three of them walked in silence for a bit.

Finally, Samra said, "I can't say I envy your position."

"I'd be a little concerned if you did," said Ernst.

\--

He knew they were just doing their jobs, but there was still something perversely satisfying about hearing the guards desperately scrambling to get themselves back into formation when the path forked and the party took the branch leading away from the camp.

"All this security around you seems slightly excessive," Samra observed.

"Father is afraid I'll run away if I'm not surrounded by a flock of armed men at all times."

"Considering all of us are out here because we have done exactly that, it would seem he was correct."

The prince smiled at that. "I'm not fond of watching people fight."

"And yet you carry a sword."

"So do you, and _you're_ still out here."

"Ah, but mine is a magical artifact of great power," Samra said solemnly.

The prince glanced over at Isla for confirmation. "He's only partly joking," she said.

They entered a grassy clearing, and Samra stopped walking. The other two looked back at him, confused. "There's a good bit of room here. If you back up, I'll introduce you," the Satyros said. Obediently, they did. Samra drew his sword.

The blade was dark and had a blue-green cast to it, and even from where he stood Ernst could feel the power radiating from it. He'd felt it before, though it took him a moment to realize where. "Is that...?"

"Flux. Yes." He chuckled. "I think it likes you. It's not usually this... outgoing." He sheathed it again, and the power in the air faded.

"Why a sword? What does it actually _do_?"

"Wraps time around it. It feels rather like the entire world has slowed down but you. Has a bit of a personality, and I understand it can sometimes disrupt spells it doesn't like. I haven't had occasion to test that, though. However, my personal favorite side-effect is of course the fact that it never gets dull or rusty. It's an excellent weapon for one such as I who has far more interesting things to do than maintain his equipment."

"I see," said the prince. Then, with a half-smile: "Mine just cuts things."

Samra laughed. "Maybe by the time you're my age you'll find one with a little more to it." It occurred to him that he had no idea how old Samra was. It was probably best not to ask.

"Maybe." He heard a sound in the bushes and grimaced. "Hold on a moment." Ernst turned around and announced to the world at large, "You're slow. If he wanted me dead, I would already _be_ dead."

Three soldiers slunk out of the trees around the clearing, looking very embarrassed and more than a bit worried.

"Your personal guard are not making the best showing of themselves today, prince," said Isla.

"We've been having some... philosophical disagreements."

"I see."

"Would these disagreements perchance involve swordfights?" said Samra.

"You heard about that?"

"You are a figure of some import, Your Highness. Word gets around." Samra paused thoughtfully. "It's a bit much to ask of an ordinary guardsman, you know. They'd be putting rather more than their careers on the line by hurting you."

"What would you suggest?"

\--

It was with reluctance born of a horrible certainty that someone was about to land in _deep_ trouble that King Victor's spies sent off a report explaining that his son had taken to sparring with the Celestian representative every morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Isla's reaction to Stocke in that one sidequest could just be because she can see _what_ he is, but I like the idea that she recognizes him enough to know _who_ he is as well. I'm not entirely certain why Samra ended up channeling Lightsong from _Warbreaker_ , except that it's great fun imagining him and Elm driving each other up the wall.


	7. Loneliness and Rumors

The castle was much quieter without her brother around, Eruca found. It was also much, much lonelier. As the weeks passed, she found herself clinging to any tidbit of information about him that she could get, and she took to quietly sitting in on some of the king's meetings with his cronies just so she could maybe pick up something more. Victor assumed this was a sign of good behavior and obedience, and she didn't correct him.

Without her brother to guide and protect her, she made far fewer trips into the city. She did occasionally sneak out, but wandering the streets or going to talk to "Martin's" friends was a frightening prospect for a girl her age, even though she usually carried her mother's pistols. While Eruca was a crack shot when it came to nonliving targets, she wasn't sure she had it in her to hurt someone. Guns were rare enough that not everyone recognized them for the weapons they were, and those who did often refused to believe that a ten-year-old child had the magical skill necessary to use them. She didn't know what she would do if she found herself facing, say, a mugger who didn't take her threat seriously.

But when she did go out, she watched and listened. Sometimes, things didn't make it to the castle. And, as she helplessly looked on, she began to realize- literally and figuratively, the city was falling apart.

At first, the changes were subtle: prices crept upwards, foreign merchants became more and more scarce, streets went unswept and graffiti ignored as the king redirected more and more of the maintenance crews to building onto the palace (political graffiti always seemed to vanish with astonishing alacrity, though). But then it got worse. Beggars proliferated, then disappeared when the king's police force began enforcing an old law that stated panhandling was punishable by cutting off the offender's hands. The foundation of one of the more heavily-trafficked bridges in the warehouse district was washed out by a flood, and no effort was made to repair it, either before or after it collapsed, killing three people and gridlocking large areas of the city. While she never stayed out late enough to run afoul of it herself, she learned a harsh curfew had been implemented such that anyone caught outside after dark either paid a hefty bribe or was arrested on the spot. Given the number of people now living in the streets, the prisons were constantly packed with anyone who wasn't fast enough to get away.

She didn't know if it was symptomatic of the problem or not that, on the five-year anniversary of her mother's death, her father announced that he planned to marry again. _(She remembered holding her brother's hand as the eleven-year-old boy screamed at her father to let them in, to let them say goodbye. "No. You would only upset her," the king had said.)_ The woman was a commoner who had been presented to the court by a red-haired, unsmiling count she hadn't met before. Her unctuously condescending tone whenever she addressed Eruca made the girl's skin crawl, but the king was, as always, quite susceptible to flattery, especially when it came from an undeniably beautiful woman. Over the course of several weeks, she had wormed her way in as a permanent fixture of court, and it hadn't taken her long after that to charm the king. Eruca tried to keep an open mind, to accept her father's high-minded rationale that his marrying a commoner would provide a boost in support by the populace, but she found it difficult to like the woman.

She wished her brother was around. She wished she could write to him without her father intercepting the letter. She wished she could just ask him _one question_. He would know what to do.

\--

Around eight months after he left, she learned that he was back in the country, but had not even gone near the castle. Instead, he had ignored his unstated orders and gone to a country estate near Cornet owned by the crown which the king rarely visited, bringing a surprisingly large portion of the returning party with him. He had, she gleaned from her father's raging, set himself up as something between a local lord and a governor. She felt oddly betrayed that he hadn't tried to come see her.

This feeling was slightly alleviated when, one afternoon, her reading was interrupted by a knock on the door. She opened it to find a rather furtive-looking soldier. He handed her an envelope, bowed, and then hurried off without saying a word. She shut the door and, curious, opened the envelope. Inside she found a single sheet of paper. _Sorry I couldn't see you. We'll get you out as soon as we can. I promise._ It was unsigned, but the familiar hasty scrawl gave away its author to her as easily as any seal. She wanted to keep it, but she knew that was a bad idea. So, with a lump in her throat, she threw the letter into the fire.

\--

Eruca was so used to being able to see her brother's exploits firsthand that it felt a little surreal to have to eavesdrop to learn about them now. It was one thing to hear someone say, "Did you hear? They say while the king was away these last few days, Prince Ernst went down to the dungeon and pardoned everyone who was supposed to be hanged for sedition and shipped them off to Cygnus before the king got back!" and look up and see her brother smile slightly and remember the nights they'd spent plotting what to do with that brief window of opportunity. It was another entirely to wander the markets alone, listening to hushed, contradictory snippets of news from far away.

"The way I heard it, he stole a bunch of the workers from the palace who were setting up for His Majesty's wedding, but Randolph told me he ordered the local garrison to build it..."

"..My cousin says he's been paying people out of Crown funds to dig irrigation ditches. It's going to do wonders for farmers that live farther from the rivers, she says..."

"..All I know is there wasn't a bridge out there before and there is now, and everyone says he did it. Even did some of the work himself, I heard. Can't imagine his father even touching a construction site..."

"-been cracking down on-"

"-out of his own pocket-"

"-helped-"

"-working with-"

"-building-"

"-I heard-"

"-says he's-"

She didn't know how much was true. She wanted to believe all of it, but she knew better. She was only eleven, but eleven years at court was enough to understand what had happened. Her father was marrying a commoner so the people would believe someone would be representing them at the highest levels of government. He wanted them to latch onto her, trust him because they saw he treated her well. But they'd latched onto someone else. They blew his actions out of proportion, making him into a messiah who could cure all their problems.

And they'd seen how the king treated _him_.

The prince had pulled the rug out from under King Victor, and Victor hadn't even noticed yet.


	8. Death and Resurrection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Aaand now I finally have to add the Archive Warning for violence. But then, if you've played the game, you knew he wasn't going to get out of this unscathed. Poor babies. *hugs*

"You know, Your Highness, you really should get some sleep."

Prince Ernst looked up from the letter he was writing, glowering at the man standing just inside the reach of the candlelight. The dark circles under his eyes distracted from the effect a bit, though. "I can't, Pierre. There's too much to do." He waved a hand at the piles and piles of papers surrounding him.

"Prince, you've slept two hours in the last three days. I think any progress you make now is going to be offset by all the mistakes you make because you can't see straight."

The prince glared at him. Pierre looked thoroughly unimpressed.

"Go to bed. It can wait a few hours."

"But can it?" Ernst sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Ugh. What is my father _doing_?"

"Lusting after that... woman, I should think." Pierre had met Protea once, several years ago, and had wanted to strangle her within a few seconds of her opening her mouth. From what the prince said about King Victor, it was a perfect match.

"How can he _possibly_ be thinking about that now!? If Alistel is attacking Celestia, we _need_ to band together before they decide to keep pushing their boundaries, or the war will start up all over again."

Pierre occasionally forgot the prince was younger than he was. Ernst still hadn't realized how little his father cared about what happened outside the palace, and for an eighteen-year-old boy, he was remarkably oblivious to how distracting attraction could be. "You'll have to ask him yourself, Your Highness. The wedding is in a week."

"That soon? Are you sure I can't skip it?"

"Unfortunately, he'd probably treat that as an act of rebellion in itself."

"...And the last thing we need right now is a civil war, yes. I guess I should just be glad he hasn't disinherited me yet."

"I think cutting off your expense account would be a more likely punishment."

"Well, either way." He tried to hide a yawn, and failed. "At least I'll get to talk to Eruca. Maybe I can figure out a way to get her out."

Pierre understood the feeling. His half-sister was almost fifteen years younger than him, and he hated to think what he would do if anything were to happen to her. "Well, you'll have a better chance of it if you're not about to fall over when you get there, so you need to get some sleep. All right, Prince?"

The prince smiled slightly. _(If Claire had been anywhere near the age where she was interested in men, he would have wanted to keep her as far away from that smile as possible. Prince Ernst, with his bright green eyes and increasingly striking good looks, was turning into someone who would leave a trail of broken hearts wherever he went without ever realizing it.)_ "Maybe you're right. But..." He looked down at the letter again.

"I'll write it. You can look it over in the morning."

"Thanks."

Watching his friend stand up, it was even more obvious how bone-tired the prince was, and Pierre was amazed that he hadn't fallen asleep at his desk. He wondered how much longer it would have to go on like this before things calmed down. He wondered, too, if the prince would let himself rest even if they did.

\--

It was the day of her father's wedding, and Eruca was getting worried. She knew from one of her father's spies that her brother had left the manor two days before. He should have been here by now, but, somehow, he wasn't. _I'm sure it's nothing._

She sat through more primping and prodding and delicate adjustment of her hair and clothes than she could remember ever going through before in her life. The king had had a brand-new pavilion built of spell-wrought glass to house the event, and everything in it had to look just as flawlessly beautiful as it did. Imperfection would not be tolerated. _I'm sure he'll get here soon and we'll laugh about how silly I was being._

It wasn't until she was actually sitting in her shining, thoroughly uncomfortable seat listening to the musicians play a fanfare for her father that she realized, with a sinking feeling, that her brother wasn't going to appear. She twisted the ring he'd bought for her four years before around on her finger and wondered what it meant.

The ceremony went off without a hiccup, the bride looking stunning in purple-accented white and everyone carefully ignoring the empty seat at the front of the building. Eruca wanted to scream.

Something was very, very wrong.

\--

The king had clearly expected his speech announcing that the prince had been found guilty of treason to be met with horror, sadness, and anger- which it was. He had equally clearly not expected that anger to be aimed at _him_. He'd had to flee to the palace and dispatch the army to quell the ensuing riot.

Eruca, like everyone else, knew the charges were false, but her father had essentially placed her under house arrest. She couldn't move from her room without being surrounded by a small mob of guards. Ostensibly, they were there to protect her, but she knew better. And her father had found out about the balcony exit, rendering that path out impossible.

She desperately wanted to contact someone, anyone, for news of her brother, but she was forbidden from talking to anyone the king hadn't approved. Those he had would, when she asked, smile unconvincingly and tell her not to worry. _(She wondered what her father had threatened them with if they said anything)_ In desperation, she'd even resorted to asking her stepmother, hoping against hope that compassion would win out, but Protea hadn't even bothered to pretend. She'd just laughed.

Thus, it was with a deep feeling of terror that she received her father's summons to the Royal Hall.

The walk seemed far longer than it was. All but two of the guards accompanying her peeled off from the group and moved to stand outside the basement library as they entered, and when the door slammed shut, it was with a horrible finality. The remaining two guards stood aside for her as she went to the shelf hiding the entrance to the Royal Hall and pulled the book to open it. They walked in, and this door, too, thudded shut, this time with the scraping of stone on stone.

She had been here a handful of times before, but it never seemed to get any less strange. Trees grew underground, strange machines waited quietly in corners, and she'd heard things moving in the impossible brush. Her father had said the density of Flux was warping the flow of time, juxtaposing the basement room with the forest that had been there once, very long ago. He'd also mentioned, offhand, that the place could be converted into a deathtrap at a moment's notice just by nudging it a little further into the past. As she crossed the bridges spanning the deep chasms in the second room, she thought to herself that she hoped she never had to see that.

Finally, she reached the last room, lit by the glow of the odd purple crystals that grew on the walls, floor, and ceiling. Her father stood near the central cluster, eyes cold, and kneeling on the ground nearby, held by no less than three guards- " _Brother!_ "

There was a fresh bruise on his cheek and his blond hair was plastered to his forehead with drying blood, but his eyes were just as stubbornly defiant as ever. "Eruca?" One of the guards kicked him in the side, and he winced, his face going white.

"Hold her!" barked Victor as Eruca started to run forward, and one of the guards grabbed her left arm and twisted it up behind her back. She gasped in pain, and as she hesitated, the other one moved in and grabbed her. She tried to squirm out of his hold, but his grip was too tight.

"Good," said the king, and looked down at his son, who stared back at him with undisguised hatred. "I assume you know why you're here."

Ernst said nothing.

The king reached down and backhanded him across the face. "Answer me!"

"Why?" The guard kicked him a second time, and he doubled over, coughing. The king raised his hand again.

"Stop it!" shouted Eruca.

The king looked over at her coldly. "This is no concern of yours."

But he didn't hit him. Instead, he turned back and said, "You should feel proud. You get to be responsible for saving the world."

"So you can do whatever you want with it once I'm out of the way?"

"Shut up," snarled Victor.

"Why? What have I got to lose?"

"Shut _up!_ "

He laughed bitterly. _(When was the last time she had heard him laugh?)_ "And you wonder why Uncle-"

This time the slap was much harder, one of the king's rings breaking the skin and leaving a shallow cut across the prince's face. Ernst didn't make a sound, just looked up calmly at his father, blood running down his cheek.

They glared at each other, each daring the other to blink. Then, slowly and deliberately, Victor drew his foot back and kicked his son viciously in the stomach. The young man bent over, gasping for breath. The king looked up and addressed the guards: "He's wasting time. Kill him."

Desperately, Eruca tried to struggle free again, but the soldier still had her in an iron-strong grip, and she could only watch in horror as one of the men nodded and drew a knife.

The next few seconds seemed to play out in slow motion. The prince suddenly jerked back as the man drew the knife along his throat. It opened a long gash, but, from the relative lack of blood, missed hitting anything vital. He twisted, kicking the legs out from under the astonished guard on his left, and grabbed the knife off the man's belt, the ropes at his wrists falling away _(How had he gotten his hands free?)_. He rolled out of the way of the third guard's foot, and cut the bonds on his ankles as well. Then he was on his feet, much quicker than he should have been able to move with his injuries- she realized with a slight shock that he must have been healing himself the whole time. As the king stumbled back in surprise, Eruca's second guard rushed in to join the melee, and she tried once more to get away, hoping the distraction would aid her. But the soldier had been expecting it, and held her even tighter.

It was four against one, but it wasn't remotely fair. The prince fought dirty, kicking one soldier in the stomach, stomping on her wrist as she fell and grabbing her sword, then slamming the pommel straight into another man's face with a rather sickening crunch. The third earned a gash across his throat to match the prince's (which was still bleeding- apparently he hadn't had time to close it yet), and the soldier who had come in with Eruca collapsed bonelessly to the ground when a slice to the back of his legs hamstrung him. The blade came down with ruthless efficiency before he could pick himself up.

Eruca almost forgot her father was still in the room until she felt the cold barrel of a gun against the side of her head. "Don't move," came Victor's voice from beside her. Her brother looked up from where he'd just dropped the last of his attackers, and froze.

"You wouldn't..."

"Wouldn't I?" said Victor.

For just a moment, Eruca could see a hint of her father's cold fury reflected in her brother's face, and it frightened her more than the gun at her head. "No. Because then I'd be the only heir. You couldn't touch me."

"I couldn't?" From where he stood to her left, she couldn't see her father's face, but she could imagine the malice in his eyes. "My new wife is quite young. She has plenty of time to bear children. If you bring Eruca back, I'll kill you and sacrifice her myself. If you don't, you'll die knowing you were the one who let the world end." His voice changed to a growl. "One way or another, you're not leaving this room alive, _my son_."

From her brother's sick, horrified expression, he believed it. She wanted to say something, to tell him not to listen- that he should just attack, let her father kill her. He had a chance to win that fight; while her father was a skilled mage, he had very little combat experience. Her brother could bring her back afterward. He was the crown prince, she was the Sacrifice. She was _meant_ to die for him.

But she couldn't get the words to form, and even if she could, she doubted Victor would let her say them. All she could do was shake her head slightly, mouthing the word _No_. Ernst met her eyes for just a second, and-

-he dropped the sword. The clatter when it hit the ground was all the louder for the silence preceding it. "Fine. You win." She opened her mouth in shock. "But at least do it yourself. You owe me that much."

She felt the gun disappear. "Kill her if he tries anything," the king said to the soldier holding her, who nodded.

Her brother looked over at her. "I'm sorry, Eruca." His voice broke. "I... don't think I could have gone through with it if things turned out the way they were supposed to." He smiled, and there were tears in his eyes. "So maybe this is for the best."

"No!" she said, but he ignored her. He just knelt quietly in a pool of blood, some of it his, as their father leveled the gun at him. Then he looked up, and locked gazes with the king for another long moment, green eyes meeting gray. Victor's hand began to shake slightly, and he looked away. Ernst closed his eyes, smiling with satisfaction.

The shot went right through his heart.

\--

Eruca screamed wordlessly and, finally, the soldier holding her let her go. She ran to where her brother's body lay, trying not to think about what she was running through _(or the fact that he had done it)_ and knelt down beside him, unheeding of the blood soaking through her dress. She felt his chest for a breath, for a heartbeat, but as she'd known, it was too late. He was gone.

There was the sound of another gunshot behind her. She jumped and turned around to find her father standing over the last guardsman. He saw her staring at him and said, "He saw too much." He waved a hand at her absently. "Get to work." She wasn't sure if she was less or more scared of him when his violence was matter-of-fact instead of rage-fueled. Shuddering and trying not to cry, she reached for her magic.

She knew what she had to do in theory, but in practice, it was much harder. They hadn't told her how much it _hurt_ to let the spell take over and force her into knitting together torn muscle and shattered bone. _(How in the world had he managed all that with two cracked ribs?)_ The magic fought her every step of the way, trying to escape and do _anything_ but what she was asking of it. She wasn't a healer, and though the power of the ritual forced her magic into the right shape, it screamed with tension, until it felt like she would shatter like glass. With what thought she could spare from the effort of not passing out, she thought about how much easier it would have been for him. _(It should have been her.)_

At some point, she heard her father say something and leave the room, but she had no idea what it was, with the pain dulling her senses. She didn't really care. She had no desire to have him around. He'd hurt her. He'd hurt _everyone_. She wanted her brother back. _(It should have been her.)_

She wasn't sure if the spell informed her or if she just instinctively knew, but it came to her that she wasn't going to be able to fix everything. She could heal his superficial injuries and patch up everything life-threatening well enough that he would live, but the deeper wounds would have to finish healing on their own. _(What had happened to his arm? It looked awful.)_ She did the best she could, then moved on. As long as he was alive, a few scars were a small price to pay. _(It should have been her.)_

The next part hurt even more.

Before, the magic had swept through her, twisting her soul into shapes it wasn't meant to be to accomplish its ends, but leaving it unharmed. Now, though, it _ripped_ , and she found herself sobbing with pain as the force of her life was torn violently out of her. She'd read that the soul was the lattice supporting a person's mana, and she had thought she understood that, but reading about it was quite different from feeling something inside her crack and suddenly realizing that the life could drain out of her at any moment. Still, she held on. _(She wanted her brother back. It should have been her.)_

And then, finally, after what could have been hours or could have been minutes, it was over. She teetered slightly, feeling as though there wasn't enough blood in her body. It seemed so natural to just let herself fall. The world went fuzzy, little more than vague sensations getting through to her- the dark red of blood, violet light glistening on its surface; the sound of her own heartbeat, thudding heavy in her ears; a deep, biting cold that seemed to go all the way to her bones. In one last moment of clarity before she blacked out entirely, she thought she saw her brother's face, still smeared with blood. But the worried eyes looking down at her were her own.


	9. Awakening and Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: I accidentally uploaded the wrong version of the previous chapter at first, so if you read it just after it went up, it's slightly different now. Mostly I just rewrote a few sections to make them sound less awkward.
> 
> I went through a _lot_ of drafts of this part. I ultimately wound up combining what I'd planned to have as two chapters into one, which is why the chapter counter now says 9/11 instead of 9/12.

Prince Ernst had expected to wake up sore. He hadn't expected to wake up shivering. There was something ironic about the fact that, after he had been shot to death, the stabbing pain in his chest bothered him less than the fact that he was _freezing_. The room hadn't seemed that cold before.

It didn't take him long to find the reason. His sister was lying collapsed next to him, and her clothes and the floor around her were all covered in a thin rime of frost. The part of his mind that had actually listened to his father's lectures told him, _Magic overflow. She forced herself to cast a spell she couldn't do efficiently, and the wasted power bled off the easiest way, which for her is ice._ Maybe it _was_ for the best how this had turned out, he thought with morbid humor. If he'd been the one trying to use magic he couldn't handle, everything would have been on fire.

Carefully, he sat up. His head swam (blood loss?), and he sat still for a moment until it went away. _(A deeply-buried part of him was screaming, but he pushed it back, the way he always did when something worried him. Who- and what- he now was could wait until later.)_ He glanced around. Where was his father? He wished he could ask his sister, but she seemed to be barely conscious at best.

Though, on the subject of Eruca, if he left her where she was she was going to freeze. Slowly, he stood up, leaning against the large violet crystal in the center of the room while he waited out the tunnel vision. The twelve-year-old girl was too heavy to lift in his condition (the wound in his arm from a stray crossbow bolt twinged as a reminder), so instead he bent down, hooked her arm around his neck, and half-carried, half-dragged her to the side of the room, where the ground was clear of blood and ice.

She was shivering, and he wished there was something he could do to help. Unfortunately, there wasn't a single thing in the room she could use as a blanket that wasn't soaked in blood, and, judging by how warm she had felt to him, he was even colder than she was. All he could do was sit down next to her and try to catch his breath _(and not think about the fact that his soul was no longer his and he had murdered four people)_.

Eventually, she stopped shaking, and her breathing fell into the steady rhythm of sleep. He had no doubt that she needed it more now than she had ever before in her life. He felt like he had to keep moving or he would pass out as well, and some instinct told him that was a bad idea. He stood up again (more tunnel vision- he'd have to get something in his system to make up for all that lost blood) and, leaning heavily on the wall for support, walked towards the door.

\--

The ex-duke had gone by many names over the years, but at present his favorite was "Heiss." It was just so obviously Alistellian, while not so suspiciously so as to make people question its veracity. He had a few plans for that pseudonym.

However, he had some family business to take care of first.

As he slipped invisibly through the palace, he began to feel time crystallize around him. Sure enough, he saw his brother storm past, shouting at anyone who had the misfortune to get near. Moving troops around the palace to prevent the riots from getting worse, from the sound of things. A thought occurred to him, and, as he had felt coming, the world froze. Follow the king and kill him, or keep hurrying for the Royal Hall to save his nephew?

Work before pleasure, he decided. He could always go back and savor the other timeline later. The moment shattered back into the normal flow of time, and he could feel the Chronicle in his bag filling itself in as he continued on.

His brother had left guards, but they didn't even slow him down. He effortlessly slipped past some, and backstabbed others from behind a shield of mana twisted to make light pass around him unimpeded. He grimaced at the noise the door made when it slid open, but it was unavoidable.

The Royal Hall was its usual, confusing self, and it brought back some not-particularly-pleasant memories. He activated several of the ancient thaumachines as he went past. Might as well not make it _easy_ for any pursuers. He let himself flicker back into view as he entered the cube room, and sped up his pace accordingly now that he didn't have to worry about being discovered.

He found his nephew in the next room. The boy was slumped against a wall and panting for breath, his hand on his throat. At first, he seemed to be dressed in red, but Heiss realized, with mounting horror, that he was just drenched in blood. "Ernst!" he called, running to the boy's side.

"Uncle...?" He didn't look up or even open his eyes, and he sounded woozy and uncertain. (Heiss noticed, with a slight shock, that Ernst was now taller than him. Another way he took after his mother.)

"Sit down before you fall over," he told the prince, who obediently collapsed to the floor. _So much blood._ He crouched down and handed him a flask of water, which the boy took with both hands and drank from like he hadn't had anything in days. When he moved his hand off his throat, Heiss saw that it had been covering a long, angry, half-healed wound. "Now," he said quietly, "I need you to look at me. Can you do that?" _Please let me have made it in time,_ he prayed to any gods that might be listening.

He felt the bottom drop out of the pit of his stomach when the eyes that met his were the color of blued steel.

"What is it, Uncle?"

If Ernst was too light-headed to figure it out on his own, there was no point in explaining. What had his brother _done_ to the boy? Victor, it seemed, couldn't even kill someone neatly. "Never mind, it's nothing."

He tried to think. Was there anything he could do to get there sooner? But no, he'd left as soon as he got word of what had happened, and by the look of the blood on the prince's clothing, which was already starting to dry to an ugly brown, he'd have to shave more than half an hour off the time it took him to get in. That would be difficult, if not impossible.

 _Or,_ said a treacherous thought, _you could just leave it._

Maybe if he went farther back... but no, that would send the timeline off onto another path, and there was no guarantee that the timing would be remotely the same. Besides, he'd already explored most of those possibilities, and there had always been something that made the branch unsuitable for his purposes.

_He's the same as you now._

That thought gave him pause. But he wouldn't wish that on the boy. Ernst deserved better than a half-dead existence, plagued by efforts to make him give up what soul he had left.

_You wouldn't have to be alone anymore._

His train of thought stopped dead in its tracks. Maybe... He glanced over at his nephew, and found the boy looking back at him with a look that was far too knowing for someone who was supposed to be unconscious.

"Sorry, Uncle. I think Father won this one," Ernst said, mouth twisting into a sad smile.

Heiss didn't say anything. Instead, he stood up, pulled the book out of his bag, and flipped to the appropriate page. A quick twist of the book's power, and he began the walk back through time.

If there was anything he could do to prevent his nephew's death, he would do it. No matter what.

\--

Heiss had long ago ceased to measure time in human units, but it was a not inconsiderable period later that he realized his goal was impossible. The guides had told him this immediately, of course, but he had, as always, ignored them- they had lied to him and misled him before, and their goals were opposite his own. He'd tried and tried, but there didn't seem to be a single history where the prince both survived and kept his soul. He would have to choose the best path from what he had.

When he materialized just before that frozen moment when Victor appeared, he chose to follow the king, silent and invisible, as he headed for his chambers. It had been a simple enough calculation- if he was already too late to prevent his nephew's death, he could spare a few minutes for revenge. And if it threw the castle into enough of an uproar to help him get out undetected, so much the better.

The king stomped through the corridors, shouting instructions left and right and walking fast enough to force his attendants to run to keep up. With that tornado of activity ripping through the halls, no one noticed Heiss padding along behind it. Victor barely even slowed down his tirade when he reached his rooms, sending off those who still followed him on one errand or another. Heiss slipped in after him, footsteps muffled by the rich carpets. Then he waited. He didn't want an audience.

He stood quietly in the corner of the room as his brother finished his instructions to the last servant. "-and bring the captain of the Palace Guard to me. I need to give him his orders about what to do with the mess in the Royal Hall." The servant bowed deeply and ran out, the door slamming shut behind her. It locked with a click as it closed.

Heiss waited a moment to make sure she was gone _(and let his brother get comfortable; what was the fun if he didn't hit him when he felt safest?)_ , then stepped out of the shadows.

"Hello, Victor." It was rather satisfying to watch the king jump in surprise and whirl around, and more satisfying still to see his expression.

"How did you get in here!?"

"Through the door, naturally." Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glance of himself reflected in the mirror hanging on one wall. He now looked much older than his elder brother, Heiss noted. It would seem Victor still hadn't gotten the hang of the books.

"Are you-?"

"Yes. Your brother. Remember me?" The half-smile ran in the family. On Ernst, it was usually faint, a hint of irony and self-deprecating humor. On Victor, it looked like an affectation even though it wasn't, oozing insincerity. Eruca made it look sweet and vulnerable, like a sliver of real happiness was shining out through a chink in her armor. And on Heiss, it was smug, self-assured, and cruel as the edge of a knife.

"What are you doing here? Have you finally come to your senses?"

"Oh no, of course not. This is just a little matter of family politics." He strolled forward, still smirking. "I have to thank you, Victor. You've made my decisions _so_ much easier."

"What...?"

"Oh yes. You and your daughter." A short bark of laughter. "You know, she had me fooled. I actually felt sorry for the girl, up until I realized what she was playing at."

"Eruca?"

"Yes. Her father's daughter, that one, though she's a better liar than you ever were." He began to walk a slow circle around the other man. "Throwing her own brother to the wolves like that. I never even saw it coming."

"What do you want?"

"Why, to see you, my dear brother! We are family, after all." The vicious smile faded away, but he continued his pacing. "You know, I wasn't sure. I knew the world was broken, but I was wondering. Maybe it wasn't worth it if that meant killing a child and forcing Ernst to rule over a dying kingdom." He stopped in front of the king, and his eyes were practically alight with rage. Victor took an involuntary step back. "Thank you for reminding me why I resolved to do as I did in the first place."

Victor opened his mouth- whether to call for his guards, bring down a bolt of lightning, or just ask more idiotic questions, Heiss never found out, because he shoved a dagger straight through the king's throat.

He stepped back to avoid the spray of blood and watched coolly as his brother collapsed. It only took a few seconds for the king to bleed out, with the carotid artery cut. Distantly, he wondered what they'd make of the manner of Victor's death; he was fairly certain it wouldn't have been possible for someone without his unnatural strength.

Now to clean up.

He had always considered the subtle, almost magnetic pull from the other half of his and Victor's shared soul yet another reason to avoid his brother's company. As he'd suspected, he could still feel it now, hanging in the air near the king's body.

It had been several years, his time, since he had discovered the ease with which an energy designed to manipulate mana could be used to manipulate souls as well. He hadn't quite figured out yet how to rip the life out of a living being, but stray dead spirits were easy enough to pick up and absorb for their power. There was, he felt, a certain poetic symmetry in killing and stealing the soul of the person who had done just that to him, years before. Besides, he was curious what would happen when the two halves were reunited outside the intended context. He reached out, and-

-the soul flowed into his before he'd even begun to reach for his magic. The power was overwhelming, like drinking liquid lightning, and as the two fragments of his- Victor's- _his_ soul rejoined, he felt completely alive for the first time since- well, since he was alive. His head buzzed with it, and he had to make a conscious effort to push the sudden blaze of power back enough to let him think clearly. He hadn't expected _that_. Was that what the ritual felt like for the caster?

He realized abruptly that he'd been standing over his brother's corpse and staring at his hand for most of a minute. He had no idea when the first visitor to the king's rooms would arrive, and he needed to be gone before they got there. But first, the other Chronicle- he hadn't settled on exactly what his plan was going to be, but it would almost certainly be easier if he controlled both books. If that traitorous brat got her hands on one of them it could be a mess, and he wasn't sure if he'd have the chance to kill her or not. _(Maybe he shouldn't even try. If anyone had earned the right to end the girl's life, it was the brother she'd all but murdered. He couldn't restore his nephew's soul, but he could at least allow the boy some level of vengeance for what had been done to him.)_

He found the book on a shelf behind Victor's desk, shoved haphazardly between a genealogical treatise and an out-of-date atlas. Typical of his brother not to give the Chronicle the use or respect he deserved. Or- had he even awakened it? That would be a laugh.

Book in hand, he slipped out of the room, locking the door behind him. Then, as quietly as he could manage without losing time, he began to run towards the basement.

\--

Ernst was aware that the way he was going, he was going to tear one of his wounds open again. But at this point, unless it was bleeding enough to leave a fresh trail of blood that would give him away, he honestly didn't think he cared. Something was wrong. Well, besides the obvious.

He slid to the floor for the umpteenth time, trying to keep the sound of his ragged breathing as quiet as possible. He was fairly certain the voices he could hear beyond the sheltering foliage didn't mean him any good, and he was glad he'd managed to get through the open, barren room of chasms before they came. He wouldn't have had anywhere to hide there, and he knew better than to think he could fight back.

He caught his thoughts beginning to drift as he sat, and forced himself to snap back- he wasn't sure if it was shock, exhaustion, or what he was now that was making the eddies of mana around the trees stand out so much, but whatever it was, he couldn't afford to waste time staring like an idiot. As he told himself so often, he could always rest later.

It was hard to tell what was going on by sound, but he didn't dare try to move from his hiding place until he knew the coast was clear. The people outside weren't talking much, but they had said enough to make it clear they were looking for someone, and they didn't sound worried about their target's well-being. There were at least three of them in this room, and he'd heard others continue deeper into the Hall. He hoped he was right in his guess that they wouldn't hurt his sister; there was nothing he could do if they did, but still, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if that happened. She'd given up too much for him already.

He held his breath as he heard footsteps go by barely ten feet from where he hid. "This area looks clear," came a woman's voice.

"Good. Keep looking," said a man, further away, and he heard the footsteps move off. He wished he knew if that meant they'd missed him or not. Being helpless frustrated him more than almost anything else.

He had started to drift off into a haze of pain again when he was suddenly shaken out of it by the sound of a loud bang in the next room, followed by what sounded like a small avalanche of rocks. His head involuntarily jerked up and he looked in the direction of the noise, but, of course, there was nothing to see but the centuries-old plants screening him from view. He heard one of the hunters shout something indistinct at the other side of the wide room, and a minute later, three pairs of feet ran past his hiding place. As far as he could tell, they didn't spare it a glance.

It was a suspiciously convenient distraction, but he couldn't afford to be picky. Laboriously, he pulled himself to his feet, trying to ignore the pains in his arm, his chest, his neck, his side. He started to move, then abruptly froze. He could hear someone else in the room. Whoever it was, they were moving much more quietly than the hunters before had- and seemed to be heading straight for him. Carefully, he drew a knife he'd stolen off one of the guards' bodies earlier. It wasn't much, but it was something.

He almost dropped it again when the source of the sound emerged from the bushes. "Uncle?"

"Yes, it's me. Hurry, we don't have much time." For some reason, out of all the shocking things about his uncle's appearance, the one that bothered him most was the man's age. He was barely over thirty, but he could have passed for nearly twice that.

"But why-" he began, but the older man cut him off.

"I said _hurry!_ If they catch you, they'll kill you! Is that what you want?"

"I... no, but-"

"Then come on!" The former duke grabbed him by the arm and started walking, dragging the startled prince behind him. Ernst stumbled, but managed to get his balance back before he fell.

When he managed to get enough breath back, he asked, "What happened to your eyes?"

"What are you talking about?" said his uncle, impatiently.

"They're red."

"They are? Well, it doesn't matter. We need to get out of here."

"What about Eruca?"

"Forget about Eruca!" he snarled with surprising vehemence.

Ernst decided not to push his luck, and stopped talking, just concentrating on keeping his feet under him. As they neared the door, his uncle gestured with his free hand, and the prince felt a bubble of... _something_ pop up around them. "Stay quiet," the man hissed, tightening his grip on Ernst's arm. His uncle dragged him forward, unheeding of the guards in the next room, trusting in the spell to hide them as it had so many times in the past. The only difference now was that the stakes were higher.

The dungeon down the hall was oddly deserted, with not a guard or prisoner in sight. The door to the cell containing the sewer passage ( _Really, Uncle?_ he thought. _Everyone and their mother knows about that passage._ ) stood open, and his uncle dropped the spell long enough to open the trapdoor and usher him down. Climbing the ladder with his injured arm hurt even more than walking, and he had to lean against the wall at the bottom until his head stopped spinning. The older man jumped down after him and shut the passage, barring and bolting it from the inside. Wordlessly, he pointed toward the passage heading out of the city.

The walk seemed much, much longer than usual, and Ernst spent most of it leaning on his uncle for support, something he might have found embarrassing if he didn't hurt so much. As the adrenaline from earlier wore off, he found himself slipping deeper and deeper into a haze, even though he tried to fight it. By the time they reached the hidden dock on the river, with its Flux-keyed locks that couldn't be opened by anyone outside the family, he was almost asleep on his feet and the cut on his neck had started leaking blood again. He didn't even remember getting into the boat before he collapsed into exhausted sleep.


	10. Reinvention and Forgetting

When Ernst woke up next, he was lying in an unfamiliar bed, dry, warm, and absolutely _starving_. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, wondering how long he'd been out. A twinge from the bullet wound in his chest made him glance down, and he saw that someone had stripped off his blood-soaked shirt, cleaned him up, and bandaged his various cuts, scrapes, and bruises (Given the number of times he'd fallen on his way out of the palace, there were quite a lot of them). He glanced around the room; it was sparsely furnished, clean but austere. An inn?

Then the door opened, and a middle-aged woman he'd never seen before walked in. "Oh! You're finally awake!" He didn't feel there was anything productive to say to that, so he just nodded. "How are you feeling?"

"Hungry."

"I bet. I'll go tell your father, then get you some food."

He had to suppress a knee-jerk reaction to panic, but from the lack of "Your Highness"es peppering the woman's speech, she had no idea who he was. He nodded, and she left. A minute or so later, his uncle entered.

"Good morning. Or, well, technically good afternoon. You've been asleep for most of the last two days, before you ask."

"Where are we?"

"The house of a small-town doctor near the border with Cygnus. She kindly agreed to take you in, in exchange for a fee."

"How much did you tell her about what happened?" That was an old code phrase of theirs- it meant "what lie did you tell," but was _slightly_ less obvious.

"Just that we are traveling merchants and you were attacked by ruffians." The spoken reply was accompanied by a quick series of hand signs, spelling out the pseudonyms he'd chosen. Ernst nodded silently to show he understood.

"Must have been some ruffians," said the doctor cheerfully as she entered, holding a tray. She set it down on a table. "I don't know how you managed to make it here alive, really."

"Healing spells. Closed the cuts."

She looked disapprovingly at him. "Yes, I saw. From the look of it, then you started cavorting around like nothing was wrong. That's a good way to hurt yourself so bad _nobody's_ going to be able to fix it. Can you walk?"

"I think so."

"Good. There's clean clothes in the corner, so I'll let you change. Call me if there are any problems."

Ernst had started shivering again almost as soon as he was out of bed and his various hurts occasionally decided to remind him they were still there, but otherwise, once he'd dressed and eaten, he felt almost human. The doctor had, reluctantly, let him fix the lighter scrapes and bruises, but she had told him that, in her opinion as a medical professional, he shouldn't even touch the deeper ones. "It'd only make you think you could do some other damn fool acrobatics, and then you'd be right back where you started," she'd said. He'd wanted to ignore her (his neck _hurt_ ), but his uncle gave him a stern look and he'd agreed. An hour (and a hefty payment to make sure the doctor forgot about them and the inconsistencies in their story) later, the two of them were on their way again.

They were walking along what had probably once been a picturesque country lane, until the desert began to intrude; now the hedges were shriveling, the nearby fields were dry and barren, and sand had started to find its way between the cobblestones of the road. _Too-ee, too-ee, too-ee_ , a bird sang in the silence. Ernst wished he knew what it was.

At long last, he said, "All right, Uncle. It's been long enough. What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Me. Eruca. Father. You. All of it."

"Why don't you tell me?" he said, with infuriating calm.

Ernst sighed. He hated when his uncle did this. Unfortunately, once he started it, usually the only way to get any answers out of him was to play along. "Father decided to get rid of me. I guess he decided I was too much of a threat."

"Yes. And?" The older man's face was impassive, not giving away any clues.

"He set a trap I couldn't get out of. Threatened Eruca to get me to cooperate. And then he... just left? Why?"

"A conveniently-timed riot outside the palace gates." He didn't ask, and his uncle didn't enlighten him. Sometimes, they had tacitly agreed, it was better that way.

"And he was... what, just going to shove me in a dungeon for a while and then kill me?"

"Exactly."

"Would that even _work_? Doesn't... the Sacrifice have to get stronger to...?" He had trouble finishing the sentence.

"My late brother was never renowned for his long-term planning skills," said the former duke, dryly.

It took a second for Ernst to process that, but then he stopped dead in his tracks. "...Father's _dead?_ "

"Indeed. Victor was assassinated that night."

" _What?!_ " His mind started racing as he tried to work out what that would set in motion. "Then we've got to get back, now! My sister-"

His uncle spun to face him, snarling. " _Forget about your sister!_ " Ernst had to work not to flinch. It was a little too like his father for comfort.

"She sold you out to die so she could steal the throne! She doesn't deserve to have you caring about her, understand?!"

He was surprised how even his reply sounded. "She had no choice. Father didn't give her one. _I_ didn't give her one. She even tried to tell me not to, but I didn't listen."

"And you honestly believe she meant it? You're still too naive."

"Yes, I do." He ignored the latter half of the statement.

"I thought you were smarter than this, Ernst. If you go back, you'll _die_! Don't you understand that?!"

"There might be another way. If we work together with-"

" _There isn't any other way!_ It's been centuries since the empire fell! If there was a solution, someone would have found it by now!"

"You don't know that. There has to be something no one has tried yet."

"So you'll do in a few years what no one else has in hundreds!? It doesn't work like that!"

"So you're saying we shouldn't even try?" he said, irritation finally starting to creep into his voice.

"I'm _saying_ that I don't want you to throw your life away!"

"Well if you're right, one of us has to!" he said angrily. "There's nobody else! By that logic, we just have to accept that we're going to have to die!"

"No, we don't," said his uncle.

The harsh shrieking of a jay sounded even louder in the sudden silence. "...What?"

"We could just... let it end."

Ernst looked at him in astonished silence.

"Think! Is this world even worth the number of lives sacrificed to preserve it?" He waved a hand at the desolation around them. "All our deaths would do is buy a little more time. Twenty years? Thirty? Is that worth your soul?" When Ernst didn't answer, he continued, "This continent's been dead since the empire fell. Why not let _it_ finally stop pretending it's alive instead of us?"

Ernst just stared at him. Eventually, he said, "...It was you who killed Father, wasn't it."

"Yes."

He'd known the thought was true as soon as it had entered his head, but it was still a shock to hear it said aloud, so casually- he'd expected his uncle to deny it. But it was oddly distant, and when he spoke, his voice seemed to belong to someone else, almost inhumanly calm. "Why?"

The older man snorted. "You of all people should have no trouble figuring _that_ out."

He let himself sink further into that strange emotional detachment as he said, "I can think of a lot of reasons _someone_ would. I don't know why it was that _you_ did."

His uncle looked at him incredulously. "He _murdered_ you!"

"Killing him didn't bring me back. My sister did."

"Yes, so she could kill you all over again!"

He shrugged. "So?"

"What do you mean, 'so'!?"

"I was already dead," he said, no particular emotion in his voice but matter-of-fact acceptance. It occurred to him that that probably wasn't healthy, but he ignored the thought- he didn't have time to worry about it right now. "She brought me back. Even if she does kill me, I've already come out ahead."

"Except she was the _reason_ you were dead in the first place!"

"No, she wasn't," Ernst said, with total conviction. "I know her better than you do, Uncle. She wouldn't do that." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Uncle. I'm going back."

They looked at each other for a moment. Then his uncle said, his face enigmatic, "You're sure?"

"Yes."

The older man sighed heavily. "Then I suppose this is goodbye."

Ernst blinked. "...That's it? You're not going to stop me?" He'd expected him to argue more- normally when the two of them disagreed on something, they could debate for hours before one of them backed down.

"What could I do?" said his uncle. _Quite a lot,_ thought Ernst. He hesitated, looking askance at the other man.

He didn't notice the black energy gathering at his feet until it was too late.

Before he could move, a wave of dark power rushed up from the ground, and he fell to his hands and knees as it wrapped around him. Almost-solid tendrils of magic dug into his skin, a feeling of frozen numbness spreading from wherever they touched. His head rang with the sound of shattering glass, and he felt as though icicles were being driven into his skull, the cold deadening all thought.

He looked up at his uncle, betrayal in his eyes, but the older man's expression was simply resigned, and a bit sad. The last words he heard before his mind went entirely blank were, "I didn't want to do this. I'm sorry, my boy."

\--

The king's funeral was, of course, lavish. Half the palace, it seemed, was draped in black, and a choir wailed mournfully in the cold morning air. The new queen was inconsolable (and, once again, stunning- she'd even confiscated the Etherion for her jewels, and while the gem blazing with shards of purple, blue, and green did look beautiful against her dark dress, Eruca was slightly appalled at the lack of respect for its significance), and Eruca honestly didn't know if the show of tears was genuine or not. For her own part, she couldn't find it in her to summon much grief for her father. So it was with dry eyes that she watched them carry the king's coffin into his tomb, and when they sealed it and her stepmother threw herself melodramatically against the door, Eruca just pulled the black velvet mantle tighter around herself and watched. She would have been a bit more convinced if Protea hadn't somehow managed to avoid wrinkling or dirtying her dress during the sobbing fit.

Nevertheless, the princess was one of the last people standing by the tomb once most of the crowd had cleared away, just... thinking.

There hadn't been a funeral for her brother. She wasn't sure if she was glad of that or not. The official story was that her father had been assassinated on the way back from the prince's execution for treason, and while she knew that wasn't true, it was proving very difficult to get any information that contradicted it from anyone. They said they'd caught the assassin, and the man had been messily executed for regicide, but she found herself questioning it- the evidence against him had been entirely circumstantial.

As far as she could tell, her brother's body had never been found, but pinning any hope on that was probably wishful thinking. She wasn't even sure if she'd managed to bring him back _(she shoved away the faint memory of him looking at her with blue-gray eyes; it was more of the same. She'd been mostly unconscious- she'd probably been dreaming)_ , and the Royal Hall was a dangerous place even at the best of times. And on top of its usual dangers, they still hadn't found the cause of the explosion that had collapsed part of the ceiling in one room. Besides, how could he have gotten out? There had been guards everywhere, and she knew better than anyone how badly hurt he'd been.

She didn't start crying until she realized she was wishing her brother was there to help her sort it out.

\--

The boy had been under on and off for most of the last three weeks. Memory modification was a tricky business, and Heiss couldn't afford to fail. If he damaged his nephew's mind, he would have to hop back in time and start all over again from the beginning. He'd converted one of his safehouses into something that was half sickbay, half magical lab. For most of the day, he kept the boy out cold on a cot so he could work, slowly and carefully altering what he knew.

He'd started with his name. That had been simple enough, but time-consuming, since it was rooted deep. He chose to leave certain basic structures of his past intact; it was easier to alter what was already there than try to hide his aristocratic upbringing entirely. A switch from royalty to the son of a rich merchant served to explain his faint upper-class accent and extensive education, his falling-out with his father remained a matter of politics, but a less direct one, and his capture, execution, revival, and escape were replaced with a fire at his home that had killed his entire family and left him destitute. _(He had been tempted to leave a spot in his nephew's memories for himself, but had decided that might be a liability to his plans. He'd have to trust the boy's ability to figure it out on his own once he needed to.)_

He gave him some autonomy on occasion, but never allowed him to wake up entirely; if Ernst noticed partway through that he had two distinct sets of memories, it would be incredibly difficult to make him forget it again. Besides, the week before he'd somehow ripped the cut across his neck open for something like the third time, even limited to sleepwalking as he had been. Who knew what he'd manage to do to it if he was completely in command of himself? There was already going to be an impressive scar whenever it healed properly.

Still, it hurt to watch the boy silent, his eyes dull and unfocused, mindlessly following routines and orders. He hoped he would be able to safely wake him up soon. He missed the spark in his nephew's eyes. And it had been far, far too long since he had seen him smile.

\--

As she listened to her stepmother gleefully gutting the country's infrastructure, Eruca found that she suddenly had a much better understanding of her brother's bloody-minded opposition to her father. She had tried to say something half a dozen times now, even resorting to rudely interrupting the queen when Protea said that the increase in military funding would go entirely to the Dias Knights and Count Selvan's troops. All it had accomplished was Protea telling her guards to shut the princess up, without even letting her speak one sentence.

They had escorted her out, then, once the doors were closed, apologized profusely. She'd nodded. She understood. Now, she was standing with her ear pressed against the door, listening, while they pointedly did not notice she was doing so.

"That poorhouse will have to go," she heard her stepmother say. "Handouts only encourage laziness in the lower classes."

"Indeed, Your Majesty," came Count Selvan's voice, a pleasant baritone. She didn't think her father had ever noticed the faint hint of mockery that never seemed to quite leave the count's voice, and her stepmother certainly didn't.

"A wise choice, Your Majesty. According to my sources, various unsavory elements may have been using it as a meeting ground. It shan't be missed." That was the voice of the newly-promoted Court Knight, melodious and soft enough that it was difficult to hear through the door.

"Then why has it not yet been razed?"

"It only began recently, and the late king believed they presented little enough threat that they did not warrant the effort." Dias again, but Eruca was sure he was speaking for Selvan. The count was behind most of the pair's machinations in domestic, civilian politics.

"And where did ignoring challenges to the rule of law get him? My husband was too soft-hearted!" If Victor had been soft-hearted, Eruca thought, she would hate to see what Protea considered cruel. "I want it demolished inside the week, and everyone known to associate with these knaves publicly flogged! Anyone found meeting at the site afterward will be considered one of them." It occurred to Eruca that Dias had never even said what they had _done_.

"And close down the others, too!" Protea continued. "Why should I pay to support those common wretches too lazy to work for themselves? I, after all, am living proof that the circumstances of one's birth have no bearing on what one accomplishes. Merit will out!"

Eruca felt some inner band of patience snap. She stood up. "I'm going to return to my quarters. Are you under orders to accompany me?" The force guarding her had, ironically, nearly vanished after her father's assassination as Protea had withdrawn as much of the palace guard as possible to guard herself, but it didn't hurt to check.

"No, Your Highness."

"All right. Then, farewell." Eruca spun on her heel and began to walk briskly towards her rooms.

Twenty minutes of clambering down vines and running through tunnels later, she was entering a certain seedy bar near the market district. She'd been there a few times before, long ago- her brother had been friends with the owner. She got some odd looks; a twelve-year-old girl in a too-large white cloak couldn't be a common sight in this part of town. She ignored them and walked right up to the bar.

"What are you doing here, little lady?"

"I need to talk to Pierre."

He raised his eyebrows. "One of Claire's friends, are you?"

"No. One of Martin's." She took a deep breath, then put her right hand on the countertop.

The bartender looked at her ring, then at her face, and froze, eyes widening.

"I _need_ to talk to Pierre," she said, softly.

"...All right. I'll tell him Martin's sister is here."

"Thank you. Please do."

\--

The boy's memories were starting to become difficult to shape, but Heiss didn't think he'd have to do any more. He seemed to have absorbed his new identity well enough not to question it, which would cover up any minor mistakes and inconsistencies, and with any luck stop him from noticing how much he couldn't remember. (He'd tried to substitute in other things where he could, but the boy's mind had eventually begun fighting back when he tried to plant false memories. Erasing was easier, though even that was starting to get difficult, now.)

It was a shame to just let him go now that he was finally lucid again, but it couldn't be helped. The boy had clearly wanted to move on and had little patience for conversation, though the stubborn child had barely gotten two miles before he'd had to stop to rest. Though, Heiss supposed, if his nephew was that intent on the plans that had been planted in his head, he really had no room to complain. It would make training him properly much easier if the boy was actually invested in it. And it had meant he hadn't had to wait long for a chance to make Ernst forget that he'd met a red-eyed man who asked him his name, his history, and the color of his eyes.

Heiss didn't like to plan too far ahead until he'd gotten a sense of where the timeline was headed. Still, he found himself looking forward to the possible futures that would come about with his nephew finally entirely out from under his father's thumb. The boy had always had so much _potential_ \- even before Victor had reminded him how little the world deserved any sacrifices in its name, he'd felt there was a strange tragedy to forcing his nephew into one path, even that of a king. Forcing him into the path of a _martyr_ was a waste that went beyond criminal.

Heiss had done his best to avoid doing the same thing when he changed the boy's recollection of his goals. He'd known there had to be something- Ernst had always been a passionate child, driven by one idea or another, and leaving him rudderless would destroy him. He ultimately settled on a desire to join the army, and he let some of his own motivations for that choice be the ones his nephew remembered having: he already had the skills, and he would have the opportunity to move out in a number of directions.

Other reasons he kept to himself- his nephew was oddly reckless with his life, and he hoped that perhaps a little more exposure to real danger would cure him of it. At the same time, it would give the boy some experience with battle; from the looks of it, he had the makings of a master swordsman, but he hadn't been in enough real fights to refine it yet. And it would place Ernst on the opposite side of the war from his backstabbing snake of a sister, which would make it easier to give him the well-earned chance to kill her. All in all, he felt, not a bad choice- which was good, as neither Chronicle would allow him to change it.

He'd given Ernst a little while free from the burden of what he was. He couldn't wait to see what he'd do with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Protea being awful was way too much fun for some reason. And it's still _technically_ Friday here, so I'm totally not putting this up later than I was planning to.


	11. Epilogue

Eruca knew a queen had even less excuse to be climbing around the rooftops of the palace than a princess did, but sometimes, she couldn't help herself. After a long day spent hearing civil cases or arguing trade agreements or any of the other million things her days were now filled with, she often found herself seeking out pleasant memories.

The tiles of the roof seemed to soak up the bright spring sunlight and radiate heat, creating a little patch of summer overlooking the gardens where the first flowers were starting to bloom. She picked her way across them, stepping carefully, following a hunch that led her towards a spot she remembered from years gone by. And, sure enough, as she rounded a chimney onto the building where she had seen her uncle and her father fighting nine years before, she found him. The man who had once been her brother.

He was sitting on the other side of the roof from their old hiding place, dressed, as always, in red. A faint breeze stirred his hair and the edges of his cloak, and his eyes were distant as he looked out over the garden some forty feet below. She couldn't help but notice that, though he'd told her he was done fighting, even now he still carried that strange, dark-bladed sword. _(She wondered about that sword; sometimes, forces seemed to flow around it that she'd never felt anywhere outside the Royal Hall)_ She walked over and sat down beside him.

"Hello, Stocke."

"Hey." He didn't look over at her, something she was grateful for. While she no longer felt her heart break every time she saw his eyes, there was still a dull ache of loss.

"Where's Raynie?"

"Visiting friends with Marco. I figured if they wanted me along, she would have asked."

They sat together in silence for a moment, staring out at the mostly-barren garden. Eventually, Eruca said, "You remembered this place."

"It... felt familiar." He seemed about to say something more, then stopped and instead said, "You put us in my old room, didn't you?"

"Yes." The official story was that he was her illegitimate half-brother, and given what he had done, no one was inclined to argue when she treated him as family. At worst, they would assume she was trying to use him to fill the hole in her heart left by her brother's death. And, she supposed, they wouldn't be far wrong.

He nodded, unsurprised. After a long silence, he finally said, "It's a strange feeling. Nothing's out of the ordinary, but then there's something like this that he missed, and..." His voice trailed off.

"He probably didn't know about it. We only went up here after dark."

"I guess that's why I remembered the way, but didn't know why I'd come here." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "He tried to cut you out of my memories entirely. Did a pretty good job, too."

She hesitated, but she had to ask. "Do you... remember anything?"

His sad, sardonic little half-smile as he glanced over at her was so agonizingly familiar that she could almost tell herself nothing was different, but she knew better. She could _feel_ the other half of her soul, and it pained to be whole again, a feeling she had to work to ignore. And every time she met his gaze and saw blue-gray eyes looking back at her instead of her brother's green, the realization of what both of them had lost would hit her all over again.

From his expression, she knew he wasn't going to let her off the hook for that question. Sure enough: "If I remembered, do you think I would've tried to kill you?"

Eruca winced. That was something she would have preferred to forget.

"Still..." He sighed. "I don't know. If it was easy to tell what was real and what wasn't, it wouldn't have taken me so long to notice." Then, quieter, "But it's not like it really matters, anyway."

"Yes, it does."

He looked at her with an unreadable expression (he was frustratingly good at those now). She stared back at him, a challenge. He looked away first.

"I know you. I know you have some idea," she said. "Tell me."

"I think Heiss just... erased everything that might give me away," he said reluctantly. "It took me a while to notice, but my memories of home are only sound. I can remember my- _our_ mother's voice, but not her face. But I also can't remember anyone's names, except for a few he changed." The half-smile was back, twisted and bitter. "And I don't have a single clear memory of my father at all. I'm pretty sure I owe Heiss my thanks for that."

She didn't say anything, which he seemed to take for confirmation.

"And there are some that I don't understand at all. Either there's details missing or he put those memories in my head, and I don't know why."

"Like...?"

"Fighting off a man with a knife. I don't know where I was or why, but I know I was fifteen, and I remember his face, which is rare. Getting lost in the woods in the middle of winter. That one's probably not real, but it _feels_ like it is. Crawling through dark tunnels. Going to a theater to see a play I don't remember, except that I hated it. A particularly vivid memory of being struck by lightning once, for some reason." He must have seen her expression, because he raised his eyebrows. "I take it you know where that one comes from."

It was her turn to look away uncomfortably. "That was Father. ...It happened more than once."

He gave her a long, thoughtful look, but didn't say anything, and they lapsed into silence again. Eventually, Eruca said, "Do you know how Uncle did it? Can... can the Book of Flux change memories like that?" She still felt uncomfortable asking him about the Chronicles. It felt like an intrusion.

"I don't know. I've only used it for a few things." He smiled to himself, as if at some private joke. _(She wished she saw him smile more.)_ Then it was gone, and he merely looked thoughtful. "But I wouldn't be surprised if it could. Nobody seems to have noticed the timeline split."

"The what?"

"There were two viable versions of history for a while," he said absently. "As far as I can tell, everyone remembers a mix of the two now. One more than the other, but a few things... bled."

"What do you mean?"

He gave her a sidelong look. "Do you remember when you gave me Etherion?"

"Yes, of course." (It had been the day they won her throne back- or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, the day he'd won her throne back for her. His surprise when she'd handed the gem to him stood out in her memories of that day, along with her stepmother's look of terrified realization when she finally connected the blond knight who held her at swordpoint with the stepson she'd only met once in person, as a battered and bloody captive. And the flash of white-hot, steely-eyed fury in response, reminding Eruca with a chill that though he had grown into one of the kindest men she'd ever known, he was still their father's son.)

"Well, do you remember when I gave it to _you_?"

"Yes." (That conversation had been... unsettling. She'd found that normally, the most comfortable way to think of him was as something like her brother's long-lost twin: a different, if similar, person with the same face. That time, though, while he still hadn't known enough to be the brother she knew, he'd known _too much_ for her to pretend he was anyone else. She'd almost told him what he was, then, in some sort of distorted hope that maybe if he knew just a little more he'd remember, and she'd have Ernst back.)

He paused, watching her like he was waiting for something. After a few seconds, he said, "Which happened first?"

She started to answer, then stopped. Now that she thought about it, she wasn't sure, and-

Suddenly, she found herself clutching her head as a stab of pain shot through it. She felt his hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. It'll go away in a minute," he told her.

Slowly, the pain faded. She shook her head. "What _was_ that?"

"You tried to remember both timelines at once when they contradicted each other. Your mind isn't really designed to handle that."

"Then why doesn't that happen to you?"

"I... didn't go through them the same way." It was the sort of vague answer he always gave when he didn't want to talk about something, so she didn't pry.

Instead, she said, "So, you think the Chronicle is stopping people from noticing their memories contradict themselves?"

He nodded. "Exactly."

"And you think Uncle used that ability to stop you from noticing what he erased?"

"Maybe. I'm going to have to look into it." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Something else for me to work on, I guess."

"You don't have to do everything yourself, you know."

He carefully ignored that, as she'd expected he would. He paused, looking up at the sky, and when he spoke again it was to change the subject. "Will is going to go into hysterics whenever he realizes you're up here, you know."

She smiled. "I suppose he will, at that. Perhaps we should return before he has a heart attack?"

"You go. I'll stay up here for a while."

"Oh no you _don't_. If I go down, you go down."

"If Your Majesty commands," he said, sounding amused.

"I do."

He stood up and offered her his hand. She took it, pulling herself to her feet. _(She could feel her own soul burning under his skin where their fingers touched)_ Together, the two of them began the walk back across the baking tiles of the roof to the palace proper. There was quite a lot for both of them to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand, there we are. Hope you've liked my self-indulgently headcanon-laden story. If I post another long fic, expect some Stocke/Raynie. Thanks for reading!


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